1. Field of Invention
The teachings presented herein relate to methods and systems for device control and determination thereof. More specifically, this invention provides methods and systems for venue-based position and context determination and control of mobile electronic devices, wireless communication devices, and applications incorporating the same.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The rapid growth and improved capabilities in the fields of telecommunications and electronic devices has led to the needs of geographic location- and position-based device control. Although conventional approaches such as Global Positioning System (GPS) technologies are able to provide device locations, the level of granularity is often not adequate for emerging applications where either a semantically meaningful description of the location is desired (e.g., a postal address) or a more precise localization of the device location is needed (e.g., a room number on a particular floor of a specific building, or on which side of an entryway the device user is situated). Radio-determination technologies of the prior art, while having capabilities adequate for their many applications in navigation and location-finding, cannot provide the degree of localization for the position information necessary for instant control of a device with respect to a user's location and continuously coordinated with the context of venue-related events. In addition, although the coordinate-based location supplied by GPS and radio-determination calculations in the prior art can be converted into semantic addresses through the use of tables and associated mapping software, the results of prior-art technologies usually imply a range of statistically possible locations, not the instantly determinate room or position knowledge necessary for practical, context-compliant control of a device.
Typically, the user contracts for wireless service with a provider licensed to engage in Commercial Mobile Radio Services (CMRS) or information services by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). For example, a licensed provider programs the user's device to select its wide area network (WAN) signals, i.e. the radio coverage provided by its own cellular radio network or that of a roaming affiliate. Only the user and the wireless network provider to which it subscribes (and roaming affiliates or others under contract) can control aspects of a customer's device such as allowing or denying the use of contracted services. Venue operators, however, have had no such control capabilities over others' personal electronic devices and those used by the telecommunications customers of others.
Licensed cellular radio, Personal Communications Services (PCS) and other types of wide area networks have large coverage from each radio cell or base station node and do not have address-specific (i.e. adequately address-selective) coverage for precise venue estimation without a location system. Microcells, picocells, femtocells, and their small, smaller and smallest radio base stations, respectively, having reduced-coverage radio footprints, can be used to cover subsets of possible locations, thereby narrowing the stochastic address ranges covered as compared to macrocell (larger cell) wide-area radio coverage. However, while cell-size-limited radio coverage is suitable for network selection and the provision of local radio access, it does not provide the venue-specific and in some cases room-specific or even more precise localization that is necessary for useful control of device functions.
Unlicensed wireless systems, such as home- or other venue-based nodes, generally have smaller coverage zones compared even to the smallest of licensed cells (although directional or point-to-point unlicensed systems can exhibit greater range). If equipped to do so, a wireless user's device can attempt to use the radio signals from a venue-based, local node—e.g. an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) 802.11 standard-based or other unlicensed node—and can determine whether the local wireless node is near enough for radio communication, thereby enabling selection of that radio modem or local area network (LAN) by the user's wireless device. Traditionally, venue operators within range can grant or deny access to use their wireless coverage and available services, and can typically infer that a user attempting radio access is within a few hundred feet of the venue's base station, but the venue operator does not have the ability to command the behaviors and features (i.e. the applications and the means being taught herein) of telecommunications devices and other personal electronics brought by others that happen to be used at or near the venue. Such device users may not even have the ability to access the venue's radio coverage. Typically, users' personal devices such as wireless phones may not even be equipped for the radio access method or frequency band that may be used by the venue. Further, a user's personal electronics such as stand-alone digital cameras and camcorders may have no wireless capability.
Approaches by others to silence mobile phones by purposefully applying radio-frequency (RF) shielding materials to a room, such as by applying metallic wall and window coverings, or by using illegal RF-jamming methods to prevent the reception of wireless signals at a venue, are improper for general use because they can prevent wireless communications for users within a given venue when there is an urgent need for such communication, e.g., during an emergency. In addition, there may be potential negative consequences for wireless users and the public.
The need to practice venue-based determination and venue-controlled network selection also arises when radio coverage from multiple WANs, and/or LANs, and/or metropolitan area networks (MANs) is simultaneously available to users' devices that can use any or all of the alternative networks. The need to also practice venue-based control of other device features may increase with the growing proliferation of Internet Protocol (IP) enabled devices including voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) telephones and devices that can access to multiple licensed and unlicensed wireless networks including voice over wireless local area networks (VoWLANs). The use of computer-based telephony, Internet, and VoIP in homes and in other private and public venues will also give rise to such need. Emerging licensed and unlicensed MANs, e.g. those wirelessly serving towns and city-sized areas, will also need these determination and control technologies. MAN operators can also deploy the network-selection-control methods possibly on a scale larger than a single venue. Existing venue-intrinsic and even neighborhood-intrinsic infrastructures can be used for control of users' devices using the techniques presented herein, in order to establish control hierarchies separate from (and not anticipated by) serving-radio-node-based and programmed methods and standards.
In the United States, VoIP networks have recently come under corrective scrutiny by the FCC because many of them had no reliable way to provide location and routing information for use in handling emergency calls. On May 19, 2005, in its First Report and Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding Enhanced 911 (E911) requirements for IP-enabled service providers, the FCC required prompt action by VoIP providers to inform all customers of the limitations of VoIP service and to manually obtain a “registered location” declaration from each VoIP user. Further, VoIP providers were given new requirements for interconnecting with established E911 networks that provide information to government/public safety authorities that respond to emergency calls.
However, venue-based VoIP has portable and nomadic aspects because many customers can use their VoIP devices not only at their own registered location, but also by accessing suitable broadband access points, such as those used by VoWLAN “hot spots,” including unlicensed nodes at other locations nationally and globally. Manual registration is an error-prone way to locate any users, but it is obviously untenable for nomadic VoIP. Thus, nomadic mobility can render a VoIP user's registered location instantly incorrect or obsolete. In its Notice, the FCC openly searched for ideas and technological solutions to the “mobile” VoIP location problem. Specifically, the FCC indicated that a number of possible methods have been proposed to automatically identify the location of a VoIP user, including gathering location information through the use of: an access jack inventory; a wireless access point inventory; access point mapping and triangulation; HDTV or high definition television signal triangulation; and various GPS-based solutions.